It's that time of the week! Here are five of the very best artworks for this week's Creative New Music Friday including credits for all the creators involved.

1. Eli Wallace – Precepts

Aside from the technical elements of Precepts, on an emotive level, the piece deals with isolation and finding ways to continue composing and collaborating with others when our entire existence has moved to online interfaces during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, Precepts deals directly with how we can continue to make music together. 

The piece was specifically composed to be executed without rehearsal, without preparation, striving for an urgent immediacy to be felt between the musicians during the recording session and heard by listeners thereafter. The piece is merely a rubric, a system, a set of guidelines to be carried out in one session. This recording is the first take of the piece.

2. Wolftopia – Ways of the Pack

Killer riffs, symphonic atmosphere, beautiful melodies and tempestuous rhythm pounding, accompanied by fantasy-inspired lyrics. These are the trademarks of the Finnish melodic death metal band Wolftopia. 

Musically, Wolftopia takes influences from various corners of metal genres, while still upholding its unique Finnish melodic identity and sound. The lyrics are inspired by fantasy literature and nature.

3. Slow Burning Rage – S/T

Slow Burning Rage is a new musical project formed by drummer Ryan Parrish, who here acts as a multi-instrumentalist. Parrish is adamant that this not be considered a solo album and, with the list of contributors being what it is, one can see why. 

Through an expansive and eclectic set of influences and collaborators, it stands as a testament to both his curatorial abilities and his unique ear for sonic world-building. As a concise statement of purpose that still manages to contain multitudes, the album acts as a reminder to listeners that the possibility for new and captivating approaches to sound still exists.

4.  Phobetor – Through Deepest Fears And Darkest Minds

Explorers of fear blighted nights and death ridden days, Phobetor has returned with their second album of blackened death metal. Fast and heavy, dark and curdled, mean and horror-infused… it’s what Phobetor do. They like to haunt your dreams and cause a cold sweat to break out.

The journey that you take Through Deepest Fears And Darkest Minds crosses varied landscapes, populated by a bestiary of terrors. The intensity of the experience is unflagging, despite the myriad intricacies which adorn the foundations of thundering power.

5.  Just Before Dawn – In the Realm of Ash and Sorrow

  • Layout Rai Wolters

The very bones of In the Realm of Ash and Sorrow is what continues to draw people to old school death metal in the first place with this effort showing us yet again that Just Before Dawn demands to be named as one of the more striking acts from all of Sweden who still inhabits the old but nonetheless thriving school that is death metal.

A grim, but powerfully atmospheric production, with realism scorched right through its centre. Saying a lot, in a short space of time, it’s a solid, strategic delivery, taking you right to the heart of the action.